Hardware:
Intel D945GTP motherboard (updated to latest BIOS)
PCIe GeForce 7600GS (using nv driver)
PCI Radeon 9200 Pro / rv280 (using radeon driver)
The PCI Radeon has an LCD panel connected to its DVI port, the PCIe GeForce has
an LCD panel connected to its first DVI port.
Description of problem:
Whichever graphics card isn't set as the primary card in the motherboard BIOS
(i.e. the "secondary" card) fails to work - in each case hardware detection
fails, though in different ways. The failing card will work when set as the
primary, and vice versa.
With the PCI Radeon set as the primary card (GeForce fails as secondary):
The PCI Radeon works fine. The GeForce is detected with 0 VideoRam, and as such
no modes are available. The VideoRam setting has no effect. The logfile (see
attachment) includes:
(II) NV(0): Initializing int10
(EE) Cannot find empty range to map base to
(EE) NV(0): Cannot read V_BIOS
With the PCIe GeForce as the primary card (Radeon fails as secondary):
The PCIe GeForce works fine. With a default configuration, the radeon driver
fails to detect the correct VideoRam or any attached monitors. If I force these
values with MonitorLayout and VideoRam, it gets a bit further but then can't
verify the modelines, so again ends up without any useable modes. Again, the
problems would seem to start around:
(II) Attempted to read BIOS 128KB from /sys/bus/pci/devices/0000:07:01.0/rom:
got 0KB
Requesting insufficient memory window!: start: 0x62000000 end: 0x620fffff size
0x8000000
(EE) Cannot find empty range to map base to
(EE) RADEON(1): Cannot read V_BIOS
(--) RADEON(1): Chipset: "ATI Radeon 9250 5960 (AGP)" (ChipID = 0x5960)
Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
xorg-x11-server-Xorg-1.1.1-47.5.fc6
xorg-x11-drv-nv-1.2.0-4.fc6
xorg-x11-drv-ati-6.6.3-1.fc6

Created attachment 147759[details]
xorg.conf used when first two attachments were generated
It was a fresh install of FC6, then yum updated, though the xorg.conf attached
above was significantly tinkered with to try to get things to working (as you
can see from the commented options!). I was able to get the radeon as secondary
further along with MonitorLayout and VideoRam.
I can run system-config-display --reconfig to create a clean xorg.conf and
generate some logs for that if it helps? However:
- on install I had to unpug the PCI radeon, or I was dropped down to text-mode
install. I suspect anaconda was mis-detecting - I saw something like "PCI card
detected" even though the PCIe card was set as primary. With just the PCIe
card, the graphical install worked fine. I'm afraid I don't have time to go
back and document this bug further at the moment - sorry.
- with the PCI radeon plugged back in, system-config-display failed to generate
a working xorg.conf, and did so in slightly wacky ways (not offering sensible
values for the second head monitor etc.). In hindsight, I'd guess this was
because it was having the same issues retreiving detected values from the
xserver as I was when doing it manually?

Also, I found this:
https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=171453
but haven't yet had a chance to check whether their patch made it upstream, or
whether it's the same issue (though it has the "cannot read V_BIOS" similarity,
it may be a red herring).

I tried applying the patches from:
https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2597#c37
(also attached, slightly modified, below)
I then booted the PC with the PCI Radeon set as primary, and dumped its V_BIOS:
dd if=/dev/mem of=/root/r9200.bios bs=65536 skip=12 count=1
I couldn't get the bios through /sys/devices/pci ... /rom
Next, I set the PCIe GeForce as the primary once more, and added:
Option "BiosLocation" "file:/root/r9200.bios"
to the device section of the Radeon (xorg.conf also attached below).
Using the V_BIOS from file solves the problem for me - I can now use both heads
(and the Xorg.0.log shows [nearly!] everything being detected correctly).
So, there is definitely an issue reading the VBIOS of the secondary card. It may
be a mainboard BIOS bug. The patches I used allow a workaround. Could these be
applied, please?
https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2597#c52
is insightful.
One caveat:
After a fresh boot, the Radeon correctly detects that there isn't a second head
attached, and sets the available modes correctly. On subsequent restarts of the
Xserver it gets this wrong - believes that there's a second head CRT, and
incorrectly sets available resolutions. Xorg logs attached below.
Forcing the correct configuration with:
Option "MonitorLayout" "TDMS,NONE"
works around this.

Created attachment 148126[details]
Second patch to xorg-x11-server package
The code following the second hunk has changed from the version the original
bfo patch was made against - it looked ok to me to drop it in where I have, but
could do with more eyeballing (I have no previous familiarity with this code at
all!).

Re-tested with F7 (using the LiveCD - thank goodness I didn't upgrade!), and the
problem still exists. To be clear: I cannot use a second graphics card in my PC
- at all.
Furthermore, the patches to xorg-x11-server attached above no longer cleanly
apply - from the changelog it looks like there have been some changes around
VBIOS detection?
Bearing in mind the patches were slight modifications of someone elses work, I'm
not convinved I can safely re-model them with confidence.
I'll attach xorg.conf and logs below.

Created attachment 158938[details]
xorg.conf: PCIe GeFore as primary card (Radeon fails as secondary)
radeon fails to load VBIOS correctly, so doesn't know available modes for the
monitor; thus it fails to configure/allocate the second head.

Created attachment 158939[details]
Xorg.0.log: PCIe GeFore as primary card (Radeon fails as secondary)
radeon fails to load VBIOS correctly, so doesn't know available modes for the
monitor; thus it fails to configure/allocate the second head.

Created attachment 158941[details]
xorg.conf: PCI radeon set as primary in BIOS (GeForce fails as secondary)
nv driver fails to load VBIOS correctly, so detects a VRAM size of 0kb; no
video modes are available, and the second head cannot be allocated.

Created attachment 158942[details]
Xorg.0.log: PCI radeon set as primary in BIOS (GeForce fails as secondary)
nv driver fails to load VBIOS correctly, so detects a VRAM size of 0kb; no
video modes are available, and the second head cannot be allocated.

I'd like to test this with Fedora 9 but I'm falling at the first hurdle. Any
hints on how to configure this hardware setup these days?
i.e. two graphics cards, one PCIe, one PCI.
I just tried to create an xorg.conf with two Device sections with the relevant
BusID and drivers, and it seems to have locked the machine (from LiveCD).

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